Infection
by Kendrene-AO3
Summary: A lone survivor's POV on the virus outbreak sweeping NYC. Complete for now. It's possible more chapters will be added as I progress in the game.
INFECTION

I tilt my head up, squinting at the glaring sky above. It is white, like an empty marble slate at a newly finished memorial or a blank page, patiently waiting for the ink to fill it. _But what truth will fill it?_ I wonder, for certainly this is a new page of humanity's chapter. What remains to be seen, is _if_ someone will survive to write that page.

I catch a stray snowflake on the tip of my tongue, as more lazily spiral down and prickle my skin. The taste is bitter with smoke and a metallic aftertaste, akin to that of blood. I wonder if there's people mingled in the snow and seeing all of the columns of oily smoke still lifting up from downtown, such a thing doesn't seem too far-fetched.

A wave of nausea washes over me and I bend forwards, hands pressed to my stomach, mouth open wide, dry-heaving. There is nothing left inside that could come out, I finished vomiting everything hours ago, along with my soul. I should be thankful It is so cold outside, as it spares me and those still alive the offensive smell of sickness and rot, the annoying reminder of their presence that people abandoned to die in their own shit leave behind. Yet, no matter how high above the ground I have climbed, I cannot escape the images branded into my memory.

When it all started, everyone thought it was the flu. I was chilling in that nice hotel near Brodway when I first saw the news make headlines on CNN. It was pinned as a particularly virulent strain of the flu to be sure, but everyone remembered the SARS and the "swine flu" and the rush to stockpile on medicines that went to waste in government warehouses after the scaremongering became apparent.

Hell, it's one of the coldest winters anyone can remember, of course the flu is bound to do the rounds.

After a few days of growing queues at hospitals and doctors, after the deaths became too many to sweep under the "more exposed part of the population" blanket statement, the flu was not flu anymore, but smallpox. Still, everyone thought, smallpox will be quite manageable right? Wrong.

Maybe it was a modified strain, or maybe our arrogance on declaring any disease eradicated, but not that many countries even bother to launch smallpox vaccination campaigns anymore. So no, it wasn't a small deal when this broke out. I figured as much when my homebound flight was cancelled. When an airline as big as United cancels all flights and nobody picks the phone when you call to find out why, something big is going down. It was the same with all major carriers. So, I was stuck in the country and it seemed like one out of every two people around me was coming down with some form of smallpox. Not me, somehow, although I do not know if I should call that luck at this point.

When it became apparent to me that I was not going to get sick, no matter how many sneezing, feverish people I stood around, I went to an hospital and volunteered to help. There were so many ill patients that anyone who could stand on their feet was welcomed to do what they could, whether it was assisting the grieving dead-in-waiting, or clear out the bodies, when no qualified personnel was around to do that anymore. After all, you don't need medical school for that.

It was a shock to see how fast this…plague worked. Nurses and doctors who were running to and fro, issuing orders to bewildered underlings, became patients themselves in a matter of days, when not hours. And in the end, more often than not, they went on to engorge the ever growing number of the dead.

Looking back it seemed in the beginning that the authorities had the situation well in hand.

I exhale slowly, a bitter surge of laughter catching in my throat, as my eyes roam the familiar yet torn landscape of New York. It took only five days for everything to collapse, press in upon itself and fold, over and over, like a discarded receipt one finds in a pocket and toys with while waiting for an appointment that now will never come.

When storekeepers became too sick to open shop, people took it upon themselves to get whatever they needed. Food, clothes, fuel and medicines went first, but also a shiny new flatscreen tv, to watch the apocalypse happen in all of its 4k gruesome detail.

Police and the army came in, there were clashes with the looters, shootings, martial law was enforced until there was nobody left around to enforce it anymore.

I have always liked to think that tragedy brings out the best in people, but after seeing this particular one unfold, the stark, terrible reality of our nature is fully revealed. We all possess a taste for violence that other species lack, a lust for the blood of our kin. Give a man a gun and no laws and eventually, if the opportunity presents itself, he will shoot his neighbor.

Said man is still going at it, judging from the reports of gunshots drifting up from below.

I should move, I _have to_ move before nightfall and find a safe place to hide, if such a thing even exists anymore. Still, I am rooted to the spot and while I tell myself I sought this high rise to figure out in which direction I should set out, I know deep down I am terrified. All the bodies I have stumbled across on my way here are dead me, waiting to happen. I don't know if people are still dying from the pox, but the bullet wounds I saw looked very real. Very recent.

I shiver as the wind picks up again and flurries of fresh snow partly obscure the view.

I don't know if I will make it out of this alive. I do not think I can.


End file.
